


Pulse

by Oregano_Cactus



Category: HELIOS Rising Heroes (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, except theres not really comfort bc these two are both emotionally stunted, junior adopted as the third beams brother, rated teen for junior's swearing and violence!, theyre both like prickly asshole cats that only care about One Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oregano_Cactus/pseuds/Oregano_Cactus
Summary: "So, another training dummy falls another night, and Keith comments with a slight worried look in his eyes about how he’s working harder than normal, and Faith drags himself into bed more exhausted than usual every night as he stares at the opposite side of the room and tries to drown out every single thought that dares slip into his mind with the heavy bass of some rock track or other."Faith and Junior are caught by a surprise attack while out on patrol, and Junior takes a hit for Faith. Faith isn't a huge fan of this, and starts to freak out. Cue the ensuing brother issues and overprotectiveness as these two emotionally stunted teenagers try to actually talk about how they care!
Relationships: Faith Beams & Leonard Wright Jr., hints of faith/billy? barely
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Pulse

**Author's Note:**

> Italics indicate speaking/thinking. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! If you like what I write, consider dropping me a kudos or a comment--they 100% make my day.

_Again._ Another snap. His arm’s aching. 

_Again._ His other arm isn’t just there for show, it’s because his wrist won’t stop trembling. 

_Again._ He seriously doesn’t know anymore if the headphones he’s using are enough anymore; the thrumming bass makes his teeth clack and he thinks he can hear it up into his brain. 

_Again._ But he can’t stop, can he? _Not after—_

_Again._ Another training dummy falls. He glances up at the clock, ticking past midnight, and grits his teeth. 

_Again_. 

— 

“ _Ahhh, you’re so annoying,”_ Junior whines, putting his hands behind his head. They’re out on patrol, as per usual, and Keith is once again nowhere to be found. He’d begged off on patrol today, whispering to Faith to try to convince Junior to _not_ tell anyone and especially not Brad, and had gone to presumably nurse his hangover in a quiet dark room somewhere. 

Whatever. Wasn’t his business. He shrugged off stray thoughts, aiming another mini-sound wave at Junior’s hair. 

As the wave ruffled past, sweeping Junior’s hair into his eyes, he yelled again. _“Fucking—Hey! Asshole! How am I supposed to patrol if I can’t even see?”_

Faith blinked at him lazily. _“Somehow, I think you’ll get over it, Ochibi-chan. Gotta turn the corner here,”_ he says, and nudges Junior into the right direction with his shoulder. Junior fusses a little, something about how he knows where to go, before giving in and rounding the corner to see some kind of petty robbery going on. 

_“Hey! That’s my backpack, creep!”_ The teenager calls out, and Faith sighs as he readies his substance. It’s still their job to try to stop small crime like this, something about keeping the sector safe, and so he does all of this menial work even though he’d much rather be in his bed or at a club. 

_“Oi, get ready. Go around and make sure the idiot doesn’t escape,”_ he dictates to Junior, and Junior nods before darting around a side path. It’s stupid, he ponders, but he feels a little bit of pride in having Junior actually listen to what he’s saying. It’s almost certainly only because Junior’s not an idiot and he realizes that it’s smarter to let Faith lead at certain times, but still. 

_“Hey,”_ he sighs to the thief. _“Quit that.”_ And with a snap, a high-pitched whine ripples through the air and into the thief’s ears, causing them to bend over and drop the backpack as their hands clap automatically to try to protect their eardrums. Junior darts out from behind a wall then, snatching the backpack up and returning it to the grateful high schooler, skidding to a halt next to Faith again. 

_“You’re just going to let him go?”_ he asks, but Faith just half-shrugs again. 

_“I mean, it’s one backpack. If we arrest every single petty thief we see, it’ll just make us look like some sort of arrogant police getting high on their own power.”_ Junior looks at him thoughtfully, almost seemingly shocked he made a rational point, before Faith opens his mouth again. _“Also, I don’t wanna fill out the paperwork if we actually have to arrest someone.”_

_“I—Arrghh! Of course it’s something stupid like that! Shitty DJ,”_ and Junior gets started on his hourly tirade once more as Faith whistles a little tune he’d been meaning to remix and gets walking once more. 

— 

They’re nearing the end of their patrol, Keith’s finally sent a text back to the sector groupchat where Junior had spammed emojis to _“make our mentor’s head hurt as much as possible with those pings”_ saying that he’d let them into the mentors’ snack stash to make up for it ( _Keith’s been better lately about being a mentor. Not great, but better)_ , and Faith feels good. It’s a good day, he thinks somewhere in the back of his mind. Maybe he’ll ask to take a look at those new chords he’d seen Junior writing in their room, workshop them a bit to test them out at a new gig; Junior had said once when he thought Faith was asleep that he’d like to test out some of his equipment. So, he feels good. 

Of course, Faith Beams isn’t allowed to have just one relaxing day, so on the last leg he turns to Junior to suggest they go grab a pastry at that bakery that just opened up ( _and try to convince him to pay for Faith’s in the process, he wasn’t made of money_ ) and as he does, he hears the loudest sound he’s ever heard in his life echo through the street, resounding like a _crack_ through his bones and right down into his brain. 

… 

It’s hazy, for a little while. The whole world’s that shade of gray that it gets when it’s early in the morning, when he’s stumbling back from a gig with his head pounding and gloss still smeared on his teeth, when he debates whether to try to shower before collapsing into bed knowing that he’ll be yelled at by somebody the next morning regardless, so he might not even try. 

Someone’s shaking him. It’s rough, and Faith wants to tell them to quit it, his head hurts and he wants to sleep in more, leave him alone, but he can’t quite figure out how to make his mouth open and form words anymore. The voice in his ear grows louder, and he doesn’t know what it’s saying but it feels like it’s important, but he can’t open his eyes and he can’t open his mouth and he can’t do anything, because when he moves it feels like there’s a pound of glass on all of his limbs, and he’s suddenly hysterically reminded of a documentary he’d watched on prop breakaway glass. He feels like that prop glass, he thinks. Rubbery and wobbly and jagged edges. 

He waits a little, and things start to be clearer even though he doesn’t want them to be, and he slowly starts to remember where they are. The crumbled brick of a building comes into view, and so does the shattered glass he’s lying on ( _ow_ ), and as he stares at the blue, blue, sky, Junior’s face suddenly comes into view, pupils blown wide and tears streaming down his face. He can feel the broken plastic of his headphones digging into his collarbone, he’d never gotten a chance to put them on. 

_“--th! Faith! Faith Beams! Fucking—Faith!”_ Junior’s screeching, high and shrill and piercing, and Faith winces again as swirls of color fill his vision. He might have a concussion, he thinks. He registers in his mind that Junior’s still crying. 

_“D’nt cry,”_ he slurs, trying to sit up. _“Makes you look…stupid.”_

_“The one fucking day, I swear to god, I’m fucking making Keith pay me so much fucking money when we get back, fucking idiot not keeping the headphones on fucking—”_ Junior’s chant becomes almost unconscious as he drags Faith’s body over to a side street, trying to keep him out of the glass, but the glass already embedded into his legs drags and Faith tries his best not to moan as Junior keeps muttering. 

Junior snaps his fingers in front of Faith’s eyes, trying to keep him alert. _“Hey. Hey. You’re alive, right? Right?”_ Faith pats Junior’s knee encouragingly in response. _“Some fucking weirdos are here and trying to…I dunno. Cause property damage? Fucking kill people? Steal money? Either way they hit the entire fucking street with some kind of sound wave and because you’re a fucking idiot and don’t keep ear protection in at all times, they got you and you got knocked hard into a building, and now you’re hurt and I don’t know how to deal with a concussion, fuck fuck fuck—”_

Faith shakes his head ( _ow_ ) and tries to snap back into a proper state of mind, which has the fun added effect of suddenly making him empty all of his stomach contents into the middle of the road as Junior frets even more. It does help clear a bit of the fog, though, and Faith squints into the sun as he tries to figure out what to do. He thinks of maybe panicking too, but he’s too concussed and tired to even panic. 

_“You’re still able to fight, yeah?”_ Faith gets out. Junior nods, eyes sharpening back to their normal intelligence as he fights back the “rookie panic,” as Keith had termed it. _“Drag me back out there, prop me up on something behind you, and let me borrow a spare pair of earplugs. I know you have some. Focus on buying time until Keith gets here.”_ He blinks, almost as an afterthought. _“Also, text Keith that we’re fucked.”_

— 

Faith tries desperately to focus his eyes as he squints from behind Junior, aiming sound waves at any spare men darting around. Junior’s sending off blasts too, with infinitely better aim than he is, and they’re at least keeping the men at bay while civilians run away but they’re not taking them down quite as fast as he’d like. He tries to take in the whole scene, trying to find the source of that sound blast they’d used earlier while he fights, but Junior’s yelling and the general loudness definitely doesn’t help his headache. Ugh. _“Left,_ ” he mutters, and Junior aims another blast at a man trying to creep up on them. 

They fight, and fight, and fight, waiting for Keith to arrive, and he sees Junior panting in exhaustion and he’s starting to go numb from his wrist down, when he finally sees the beast of a weapon that he’d been hit with earlier glint out of the corner of his eye. Faith’s eyes widen in shock as he sees it turn towards him and sees a dial move, and he shouts for a brief moment before he suddenly can’t see the barrel pointed straight at him anymore and all he can hear is the click of a trigger. 

His eyes finally decide to focus when they see the sunlight glint off of Junior’s singular blue eye as he dashes in front of Faith and in front of the sound weapon. 

And in the next instant, they close again as Junior’s body is blown back directly into Faith’s, slamming them both back a couple feet. 

Faith gasps as he has the wind knocked out of him, long and deep, and whips his head up as soon as he can to check for both enemies and on Junior, limp in his arms. 

The other men aren’t anywhere near them, not yet with the main weapon-holder having retreated to presumably regroup, so he looks down to check on his teammate. 

He suddenly feels the urge to laugh, almost hysterically, at the reversal of their situations—now he’s the one looking down at Junior who suddenly looks entirely too young, eyes closed and battered like this, and he tries a couple times to shake Junior awake before realizing he’s truly and completely knocked out from a point-blank blast. _“Ochibi-chan,”_ he calls futilely, desperately trying to brainstorm a way out of their situation which even he can admit is pretty awful. _“Oi. Wake up. I need you awake right now, you can’t die on me,”_ he barks out as he realizes how shallow Junior’s breaths are getting. He can’t afford the luxury of tears, and besides, he doesn’t cry easily anyways, but he still feels a lump of panic welling up in his throat as he realizes they can’t even move. _“Idiot,”_ he mutters again, scanning the area to try to distract himself from the panic he shouldn’t be feeling. _“What’d you go and jump like that for. Idiot. Should’ve let me take the hit, I’m your senior. What good am I if I can’t take a hit or two, huh? Hey. Ochibi-chan.”_

He’s rambling now, trying to keep himself occupied so he doesn’t think about what Junior did too hard, trying to push away the thought that someone would care enough to try to sacrifice themselves. He was solitary, that’s how it's always been. _“Junior. Wake up.”_ Maybe if he used his actual nickname he’d wake up. _“Junior, you’ve got to be awake, we gotta wait for Keith to arrive. At least keep breathing.”_

Men start to approach them again, realizing they’re both prone on the floor, and Faith grits his teeth again. He pulls Junior’s body closer, tucking him into the safest position he possibly can, and tries to ignore the pain resounding through his head as he sends out wave after sound wave, blasting the enemies away and praying to any god that can hear for Keith’s arrival. 

— 

When Keith does arrive 15 minutes later, he spots Faith at the end of the street, near-dead to the world except whatever foe decides to approach him next, bleeding from his nose and arm propped up with his knee as he sends out his attacks. 

His other rookie’s cradled in Faith’s remaining arm, curled up like a very bruised and bloody cat, and he’s pretty sure he spots the trademark signs of bruised or broken ribs as he dashes closer to relieve them of duty (and hopefully get them to the hospital). _“Faith,”_ he yells, finally serious, _“Stand down.”_

At those words, Faith slumps over like a marionette with its strings cut, slouching down near down to the ground. 

Keith makes short work of the remaining men, cursing himself out ( _what’s new?_ ) for not arriving sooner, and kneels at the rookies’ side to check damage. Faith’s almost certainly got some sort of concussion going on, maybe a couple bruised ribs too, and nasty cuts all over his back and legs; Junior’s got a bruised…everything, and looks to have the same injuries as Faith turned up to the tenth degree. Either way, definitely a trip to the hospital. 

_“C’mon,”_ he huffs. _“Time to get you guys to some actual medical care.”_ He tries to take Junior from Faith to lug him onto his back, barely noticing the glint of protectiveness in his eyes. _“Oh, c’mon, I’ll get him there fastest. You can barely even walk—actually, can you walk?”_

Faith shakes his head lightly no, then seems to regret the motion as he winces. He still hasn’t let go of Junior. Keith sighs. _“Adrenaline rush is finally coming down, huh? I know your brain’s a little stupid right now, but I’m just getting Junior to actual proper help. He’s not getting any help here, so ease up, will you? I’ll get someone to help you too, don’t worry.”_ Faith finally, _finally_ , releases his grip, and Keith hefts Junior onto his back as he starts the travel back to the main quarters. _“Kids.”_

— 

Faith wakes up in the hospital, wounds neatly bandaged, and lies there briefly before a jolt of panic runs through his head, and he sits up to see— 

Junior, resting in the bed next to him, eyes closed and pulse ticking steadily according to his heart monitor. 

He sighs and lies back down, ribs twinging. 

It was his fault, really. His fault he hadn’t worn proper ear protection throughout the patrol, but it’d been so slow he’d really thought it’d be fine. It was his fault that Junior got hit, his fault that Junior was lying there looking like a porcelain doll instead of the asshole teenager that he was. His fucking fault that he hadn’t been able to be a better senior, just when Junior had started to actually listen to him on patrol. 

_(In a way, it felt like he was going through the pain of seeing his brother fall from the pedestal Faith had put him on all those years ago all over again, but from the other side of the curtain—and it wasn’t any more pleasant on this side.)_

He tries to turn over, then regrets it after his body yells at him, and spends the night staring at the patterns on the ceiling, ignoring the hot tears that trickle down onto his pillow every couple minutes. 

— 

Of course, Faith heals faster than Junior. He’d been hit less, technically; only hit from afar once then the accumulated injuries that were just a byproduct. 

He devotes every spare second between his release from medical observation and Junior’s to training. 

Billy drops by a lot at the beginning of his recovery, tries to cheer him up with gifts and babble and all of the light-hearted things that would normally be welcome, but he just digs his fingers into his arms and remembers how he’d been chatting instead of watching the situation when they’d been hit and clams up. He appreciates the gestures, and there’s one night where Billy doesn’t try anything except just to quietly narrate a video game he’d picked up and he finally sleeps peacefully for a bit, but his mind still turns into white noise whenever he’s not training and he keeps seeing Junior’s eye flash in his mind. 

So, another training dummy falls another night, and Keith comments with a slight worried look in his eyes about how he’s working harder than normal, and Faith drags himself into bed more exhausted than usual every night as he stares at the opposite side of the room and tries to drown out every single thought that dares slip into his mind with the heavy bass of some rock track or other. 

— 

Junior’s released on a Wednesday, which he shouldn’t remember except he remembers chanting _Wednesday’s child is full of woe_ from a book of nursery rhymes in his childhood, and he doesn’t realize that Junior’s out of the hospital until he ends a training session panting with his wrist twitching like a maniac from overuse. 

He tries to drink from his water bottle before slamming it down frustratedly, willing his hands to still, and slips off his headphones while he turns around to see Junior standing in the doorway awkwardly, fidgeting with his shirt ( _which, thank god, is no longer the god-ugly hospital gown he’d been in for the past couple weeks_ ). 

They stare at each other for a long couple seconds, before Junior breaks the silence, ever the go-getter. _“So, um. You’ve been working on your stamina?”_

Faith shrugs as he turns his back again, trying to hide the flurry of emotions that fly over his face before he smoothes it back over. _“I guess. Dunno. Just working for a little bit.”_

_“Good. It’s good to finally get some work done, you know,”_ Junior mumbles, then dashes out of the room, shoes slapping on the tile outside, and Faith stares after him for another minute straight before he finally shakes himself out of his stupor to go shower. 

— 

When Faith falls into bed later that night, mind already starting up its white noise, he turns over to stare at the other side of the room like usual and sees Junior’s eyes glowing back at him ( _just like that day again_ ). 

They stare at each other, long and hard, and Faith almost expects it but doesn’t when Junior whispers into the room. _“Keith told me you were training really hard. Like, really really hard.”_

_“I guess you could say that,”_ he responds, voice in the same hushed tone as if raising it would break whatever atmosphere was settling in the room. 

_“What for? He said you were maxing out the scores. They told him to stop you so you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”_

_“It’s fine. Don’t worry yourself about it.”_

There’s another long pause before Junior takes a deep breath, like he’s steeling himself for what he says next. _“It’s not your fault, you shitty DJ.”_

_“...You don’t know that,”_ Faith responds. _“Wouldn’t have happened if I was more diligent about patrol. Simple as that.”_

_“I chose to do that on my own. Isn’t that what a hero’s supposed to do? Protect others?”_

“ _Not your senior, Ochibi-chan. That’s supposed to be my job. What kind of shitty senior am I if I can’t even protect my junior?”_ He turns over again, fed up with the conversation. _“Sleep.”_

He luckily doesn’t hear anything else for the rest of the night, even as he slips into the blank white expanse of sleep. 

— 

He’s training the next day again, eyes watering as he aims towards his targets, when he sees the red light blink to indicate that a visitor’s arrived and he spots Junior wander in again, cheeks flushed. 

_“What’s up,”_ he says as he tugs off his headphones. _“Keith want something?”_

There’s a heartbeat of a pause before he registers arms wrapping around his middle, and Junior spits out _“It’s not your fucking fault and it pisses me the fuck off to see you thinking that it is because it’s fucking not because people make stupid mistakes and you made one but it wasn’t your fault because I chose to do it and you kept me safe until Keith fucking showed up so it’s equal anyways and I think you’re a fucking good senior still so fucking stop blaming yourself!”_ into his training shirt all in one breath before sprinting out of the training room like a speed demon. 

Faith blinks after him in shock as he feels the imprint of Junior’s arms wrapped around him in an awkward hug. Huh. So the little asshole did care. 

He quietly shuts off the training simulation as he packs up his equipment, deciding to stop for the day, and when he bumps into Junior again in the hallway, he ruffles his hair until he starts screaming profanities again and threatens to put him back in the hospital. 

— 

They do get those chocolate things that Faith had been looking at, a couple weeks later, and he even manages to get Junior to pay for him. His devotion to being a good senior doesn’t extend to extorting Junior for cash, as it turns out, and Junior looks at him with resigned rage before handing over the money to the cashier. 

_“They’re good, don’t look at me like that,”_ he shrugs when Junior fumes, and only snaps back into focus when he hears the crash of some brat trying to be cocky with homemade weapons a street over. _“Ochibi-chan, ready?”_ he calls, checking his headphones, and cracks a half-smile at Junior literally sparking from next to him. _“Okay, let’s go.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! Please note that I'm not incredibly familiar with these two, this being my first work and not much of the actual story for them being out yet in English, so I heavily apologize if there are any mischaracterizations. (Also, please don't ask about the timeline. I have no clue when this takes place and I have absolutely no coherent thoughts in my mind.) 
> 
> Some fun facts, as always:   
> \- I tried to show Junior as a capable but still young hero; he's perfectly competent and focused once directed, but it's his first time really seeing Faith ever get knocked around this bad so he panics a bit.   
> \- Faith loves to extort people because he thinks it's funny. He'll still try to be dependable if it's really needed, but otherwise anything and everything is fair game.   
> \- I had a deleted scene somewhere where Junior and Faith play music together, because I'm a musician and a sucker for that sort of thing, but couldn't find a place to fit it in. Just imagine they're playing something from Guns 'n Roses together!  
> \- I give it about 5 more months before Faith needs a wrist brace.   
> \- Keith feels REAL bad afterwards. Like, enough to be sober for a couple weeks bad. Junior does in fact demand money for his troubles.   
> \- That broken glass doesn't heal fast, by the way. Jagged wounds mean that Faith spends a couple months scratching at scars. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I know the Helios fandom isn't very large, but I thought I'd dash something off just for a bit of fun. If you enjoyed my writing, PLEASE leave a comment or kudos! I get my motivation from your feedback, even if it's just one word, and I'd love to hear what you have to say.


End file.
